DAKISJOANNOU-1K:Sestava 1
Transcription
DAKISJOANNOU-1K:Sestava 1
DAKISJOANNOU-1K:Sestava 1 8.9.2010 0:01 Stránka 1 BOND ART 86 COLLECTING IS AN ADVENTURE DAKIS JOANNOU C ONVERSATION WITH DAKIS JOANNOU, ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CONTEMPORARY ART COLLECTORS TODAY AND FOUNDER OF THE DESTE ART FOUNDATION We meet Dakis Joannou at his home in Athens, Greece. His house is reached up a steep drive, overlooking the city and built around a courtyard. It was extended, he says, to accommodate his art collection. A “Mount Olympus of art”, we comment. One can spot the art lover and a serious, life-long collector as distinct from the art investor/ opportunist from the way they show their collection. Dakis Joannou delights in giving us the tour personally, drawing attention to every detail and explaining how it fits in with the layout of the building. We go past the striking Maurizio Cattelan taxidermied horse plunging into the wall and into a marble-clad, museum size room, dedicated for the most part to Jeff Koons’ work. On the way, Joannou points to a metal grille on the floor which could easily be overlooked as a fixture. It is, in fact, another art installation, Man in Drain (1993-94), showing a male torso pierced by a drain. Joannou is well known for collecting Jeff Koons’ works, having started well before and even contributed to Koons’ iconic status of today, so it comes as no surprise to see the room dominated by the artist’s work from different production periods: from the giant “Hulk” canvasses to the Michael Jackson and Bubbles porcelain statue to the stainless steel train carrying Bourbon. The marble room, Joannou says, often hosts parties, with the most memorable of all being the new millennium party when the entire room was turned into a casino. their work. The collection is 100% contemporary art, mostly by American artists, with works by, to name a few, Jeff Koons, Robert Gober, Charles Ray, Maurizio Cattelan, Jenny Holzer, Kiki Smith, Verne Dawson, Cindy Sherman, Mike Kelley, Chris Ofili, Christopher Wool, Ashley Bickerton, George Condo, Mark Grotjahn, Pawel Althamer, Wangechi Mutu, David Altmejd, Barnaby Furnas, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, David Shrigley, John Bock, Allan McCollum, Joseph Kosuth, Piotr Uklanski, Gillian Wearing, Richard Prince, Dan Colen, Roberto Cuoghi, Friedrich Kunath, John Dogg, Dan Attoe ..... FURTHER ALONG THE GYM HOUSES FINE LIMITED EDITION Dakis Joannou began collecting “seriously” in 1985, but has had an abiding love of art his entire life. One ante room bears testimony to his student days’ passion for art and displays a row of rather extraordinary figurines he acquired in Italy where he studied architecture (he had to learn Italian in order to pursue his studies) after completing a degree in engineering in the US. He could have happily remained the eternal student, he says, but had to join the family business, construction, at the end of these 10 years of academic endeavours. The tour of the house is circular and circuitous and we end where we began, but not before seeing a succession of gallery style rooms displaying a diverse and eclectic, collection, reflecting the collector’s personal relationship with the artists and PRINTS OF RACHEL MCLISH. DOES HE TRAIN, I ASK? Not much, but his wife does. His wife makes a brief entrance as we embark on the conversation, looking remarkably youthful, in fact. The room where we finally sit is decorated with art as well as pictures of his close family - children and grand-children. We sit on a low 60s cream leather sofa and he opens one of the Beyond Black books I have brought for him. He dwells briefly on the Thomas Flohr profile and his yacht, designed, he says by the same designer, Ivana Porfiri who worked on his yacht, Guilty. This is a perfect opening for my first question. “ SO TELL ME ABOUT THIS BOAT OF YOURS… “ “ I decided to give the project to Ivana Porfiri.”, recalls Joannou. DAKISJOANNOU-1K:Sestava 1 8.9.2010 0:01 Stránka 2 Photo of Dakis Joannou by Jean Pigozzi Athens 2008 DAKISJOANNOU-1K:Sestava 1 8.9.2010 0:01 Stránka 3 Instalation A GUEST + A HOST= A GHOST, Athens 2009 Photo: Stefan Altenburger DAKISJOANNOU-1K:Sestava 1 8.9.2010 0:01 Stránka 4 DAKISJOANNOU-1K:Sestava 1 8.9.2010 0:01 Stránka 5 Instalation Fracture figure, Athens 2008 photo: Stefan Altenburger DAKISJOANNOU-1K:Sestava 1 8.9.2010 0:01 Stránka 6 BOND ART 91 I ask him about the explosion of contemporary art prices that preceded the recession and how hype has conspired with opportunism to drive them well beyond some pieces’ intrinsic worth. He goes on the describe Porfiri’s style which is to take a standard boat shape and make some changes to it, although not many structural ones. She then does the inside. With his boat, designer and client decided to do “something completely fresh”. “I wanted a boat that was completely flat and very open”, says Joannou, “I wanted a sun deck, dining, saloon, kitchen, cabins downstairs and my bedroom on top, so that the whole thing became like a platform”. “Talent will always out”, says Joannou philosophically. He, of course, started collecting some of today’s most bankable artists when they were still relatively unknown, so the satisfaction of having made the right decisions, commercially as well as aesthetically, must be enormous. Joannou didn’t want the yacht to exceed 110/115’ in size so as to be able to get into smaller marinas. The hull Ivana found, however, was 120 ft. In order to accommodate her client she simply cut off the nose of the hull, which immediately gave the boat a particular character of its own. “That was the key idea”, says Joannou. Still, the man is totally unprepossessing and while he lights up when he talks of his new projects, it is without a trace of smugness. He is not investing, he says, but buying to add to the collection. Does he sell? Yes, occasionally - even museums sell, else one runs out of space. In conversation with Jeff Koons, he mentioned he wanted a colourful boat, so Koons suggested a 1st World War camouflage (this was done to confuse the enemy as to the boat’s intentions and directions). WHO WAS THE FIRST ARTIST WHOSE WORK HE BOUGHT? As it transpired, Ivana had had the exact same idea, but didn’t quite know how to break it to her client. “The whole project fitted together”, says Joannou, “as the design was so well integrated” - giving him the most unconventional yacht of all times. “Beyond the ordinary”. Instalation Fracture figure Athens 2008, photo: Stefan Altenburger Jeff Koons was the first artist he started to collect, he clarifies. As for buying, anything from a very early age… The first thing he bought was a very interesting photograph – a combination of pop art and metaphysics triangle in a sphere - because it combined elements of his personal journey: pop art (USA) and the metaphysical (Italy). “I bought it”, he says, “because it fitted my experiences between New York and Rome”. DAKISJOANNOU-1K:Sestava 1 8.9.2010 0:01 Stránka 7 Instalation Fracture Figure, Athens 2008 photo: Stefan Altenburger How does he choose what he buys? Is it love at first sight, or the concept of the piece or the texture? Everything has to work, he says, and when you look at a work of art, you have to connect with it. Joannou establishes personal relationships with the artists he collects: he befriends them and builds a rapport with them, but doesn’t ask a lot of questions about their work. “We just talk”, he says. “I thought it was a sin to collect art”. How so, I ask? “I thought collecting was rich people buying trophies to put in their living rooms. I couldn’t understand it.” DOES HE BUY ONE OFFS OR DOES HE COLLECT WORKS BY The Deste Art Foundation was born, some shows followed - in Greece and in Swizterland - then Joannou met Koons, they “clicked” and the rest, as they say, is history. Then, during lunch in Athens a friend recommended that he established an art foundation as one way of being involved in art. The Joannou concept took shape in the course of a dinner with Dennis Streetman in NY, 3 or 4 years ago. Instead of buying the most important piece in a fashion collection, Streetman suggested they buy 5 pieces and ask artists to interpret them either through photography, poetry or any other artistic medium and publish the interpretations in the form of books. Each interpretation is naturally very subjective. THE SAME ARTISTS? “With some I do, some I don’t.”, he says, “I have several one offs and I can collect others’ work extensively”. ”It’s important to do this because you give the collection presence, you don’t just collect masterpieces. You create a juxtaposition of various artists and varied artworks.” He set up the foundation, he says, because quite simply, he wanted to be involved in art, yet didn’t initially want to collect. He is the only one involved with the foundation and runs it with a small number of dedicated staff. HOW DID HE COME UP WITH IDEA OF FASHION AS ART? He’d been playing with the idea for a long time, he says. The idea of fashion as art fascinated him, but he lacked focus. Then Artforum magazine published that picture of Issey Miyake on its cover in 1982. The interpretations to date have been by: Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak Juergen Teller Helmut Lang With Patrizia Cavalli scheduled for 2010 “This is a very special approach, says Joannou, and the first experiment of its kind” HAS HE EVER COLLECTED FINE ART? “No, the only thing I did when I started the collection, was to buy some pieces to give reference to the collection and to put young unknown artists DAKISJOANNOU-1K:Sestava 1 8.9.2010 0:01 Stránka 8 Instalation Fracture Figure, Athens 2008 photo: Stefan Altenburger into context. Twenty years later, they are the context and the supporting pieces are sold.” them to another level. Contemporary art is relevant to what is happening now”. He doesn’t collect country-specific art, he says he just looks at the merit of the work. The Deste Foundation’s purpose, however, is to highlight the work of Greek artists and place them on the international scene. Dakis Joannou’s personal relevance on the global art scene is unquestionable. The scale and focus of his collection, as well as Joannou’s drive and ideas, make it one of the most remarkable and interesting privately owned contemporary art collections today. HOW IMPORTANT IS ART IN GENERAL? He can’t judge this from other people’s point of view, he says, but people in general need art. Everyone has something on their wall, whether Chinese embroidery or photography or anything else. Different people have a different relationship with their art. HOW DOES HE WANT TO BE REMEMBERED? He says he is not concerned with posterity, but with now. What he does, he says through art - that’s his language and his tool. Yet Joannou doesn’t feel that art’s purpose is to influence public opinion in any way. “Its purpose is to enrich people’s minds and take THE DESTE FOUNDATION The foundation was established by Dakis Joannou is 1983. Its current program focuses on “exploring the connections between art and fashion, music, film, architecture, design and contemporary culture” and includes the Hydra Slaughterhouse Project which hosts a series of interestingly curated exhibitions by different artists in this sensitively restored building, The Deste Fashion Collection project - unique in its concept and approach providing “a fruitful dialogue between fashion and art” as well as a biannual prize to a Greek artist of merit. The Foundation has hosted more than 600 artists to date and among those exhibited at the time of our visit, Mauritzio Cattelan, Urs Fisher, Jeff Koons, David Altmejd and Seth Price, were the best represented in terms of body of work. The “Skin Fruit” exhibition, New York The New Museum is currently hosting the Jeff Koons curated exhibition “Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection”. “Skin Fruit” is the first exhibition in the United States of the Athens-based Dakis Joannou Collection, renowned as one of the leading collections of contemporary art in the world. This is also the first exhibition curated by Koons, whose early work inspired the evolution of the Joannou collection. “Skin Fruit” includes over 100 works by 50 international artists spanning several generations. Focusing on the body in contemporary art, the exhibition spotlights the age-old preoccupation with the human form as a vessel of and vehicle for experience. Koons’s title “Skin Fruit” alludes to notions of genesis, evolution, original sin, and sexuality. Skin and fruit evoke the essential tensions between interior and exterior, between what we see and what we consume. 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